Our say: For Earth Day, good news about the bay

Courtesy of the West and Rhode R / HANDOUT

Capt. John VanAlstine is one of several watermen who will be providing oysters raised and harvested on the West and Rhode Rivers for the Pigs and Pearls event. Courtesy of the West and Rhode Riverkeeper - Original Credit:

Capt. John VanAlstine is one of several watermen who will be providing oysters raised and harvested on the West and Rhode Rivers for the Pigs and Pearls event. Courtesy of the West and Rhode Riverkeeper - Original Credit: (Courtesy of the West and Rhode R / HANDOUT)

Earth Day should be an occasion not just to advocate for environmental protection but to take stock. In light of that, the latest figures from the Chesapeake Bay Program — showing progress against the types of pollution targeted by federal mandates — are not just well timed but provide an encouraging message for the day: If you make an effort and give nature half a chance, it can recover.

A second message was provided by the General Assembly in the final hours of the recent session, when it authorized a study of the bay's embattled oyster population: Good environmental policy is founded on the best available information, and it's a mistake — as legislators eventually realized — to forgo reasonable opportunities to add to that body of knowledge.

The first Earth Day was in 1970, less than eight months before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, created by an executive order of President Richard Nixon, came into being. Those who don't remember that era probably can't grasp the role Earth Day played in shifting environmentalism from an "out-there" concern of a few tree-huggers into a mainstream movement that could get a sympathetic hearing from government officials.

The change in attitude didn't come any too soon for the Chesapeake Bay, which in the 1970s was the location of some of the first oxygen-deprived "dead zones" identified in any body of water. More than four decades later, officials are still trying to reduce the bay's intake of types of pollution — sediment, phosphorus and nitrogen — that cut off sunlight, either directly or by fueling the growth of algae, and enlarge dead zones.

Those efforts are having an impact. According to the Chesapeake Bay Program, from 2009 to 2015, throughout the bay, nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment levels have decreased by 8 percent, 20 percent and 7 percent respectively. Water quality experts attribute this to less nitrogen and phosphorus in wastewater, lower nitrogen levels in the atmosphere because of the Clean Air Act and improved agriculture conservation practices.

So, while the goals Maryland has agreed to meet in 2025 are still daunting, there has been progress. There might be even more if we can boost the bay's population of oysters, the finest natural water filters in existence. That's why it's important that legislators approved a study — similar to those already done on rockfish and blue crabs — that will assess the bay's oyster population and how it is holding out against pollution and disease.

Yes, it might eventually lead to more regulations — the fear of some watermen who opposed the study. But ignorance and conjecture are a bad basis for making policy.